The tribe had argued that the entire mountain eyed by Granite
for its 135-acre hard rock quarry was sacred, a site akin to the
Garden of Eden for them.

Granite attorney Mark Harrison had worked to undercut that
argument by saying the site could be developed carefully to avoid
damaging landscape "features" that were culturally significant,
much as the tribe spared its Great Oak during construction of its
golf course.

Macarro told the supervisors that any development on the
mountain would not be supported.

"The mountain is the feature," he said.

Project debated

Buster and Stone, who represent portions of Southwest County,
dominated the discourse on the project before the final vote. They
said the benefits of the mine did not outweigh its potential
negative cultural and environmental effects, which they said
included risking the health and welfare of area residents.

"I don't see how a quarry of this size, with this number of tons
per year, designed for a distant marketplace in mid-San Diego
County ---- even with the paltry additional mitigation that has
been proposed ---- is an appropriate thing for us to approve
today," Buster said.

Benoit had argued that an oversight board could be established
that would allow the public to closely monitor the quarry's
operations, and he proposed a slate of conditions that would
require creating programs to monitor noise, air quality and water
quality.

Benoit's motion to approve the project with those conditions,
seconded by Ashley, was defeated, however.